Doyle delights as Reading show promotion form

In recent seasons, Reading have tended to flit around the promotion picture until Christmas, before losing their way in the January sludge. But the way they breezily dismissed an Ipswich side that are usually play-off bankers suggests Steve Coppell's men could be in for the long haul.

Not that Coppell himself was having any of it. "We are playing well, but there are no awards for anything in October," he warned. "There's a question mark surrounding whether we can sustain it. We are a top of the ground side. Can we still perform in December or February? That's what we have to prove to ourselves."

Still, the early signs are mightily encouraging. This victory took Reading's unbeaten run to 14 games, while another clean sheet preserved the best defensive record in the Football League - not bad for a squad missing its captain, Graeme Murty, and its best player from last season, Steve Sidwell, through injury.

Admittedly they were helped by a stunningly lackadaisical performance from Ipswich, which manifested itself as early as the second minute when Jason de Vos dawdled on the ball, was robbed by Kevin Doyle, and was lucky only to see yellow after fouling Doyle when he tried to win it back.

While the home supporters booed and whined, Reading got on with exploiting the gaps in the visitor's woolly 3-5-2 formation. Their plan was simple: whenever possible, push Glenn Little and Bobby Convey forward on the wings to transform a regulation 4-4-2 into an all-guns-blazing 4-2-4.

It is a tactic found in any basic FA coaching manual, but how to counter it was utterly beyond Ipswich. Reading created chances for fun, the only difficulty they had was putting them away.

Within the first 15 minutes, Little fired narrowly wide and Leroy Lita somehow toe-poked past from seven yards, as Reading were given the freedom of the Madejski Stadium.

A goal was not long in coming, however. Doyle found space on the right, jiggled to the byline and crossed low and hard, before - with Lita waiting to pounce - Richard Naylor slid the ball into his own net.

At half-time Royle took off De Vos for Adam Proudlock and switched to 4-4-2, but a minute after the restart another defensive blunder gifted Reading a second. Instead of hoofing a clearance into the stands, James McEveley tried to dribble his way out of danger from deep inside his own half. Little made the tackle before floating a back-post cross for Doyle to head home.

After that, the game had all the competitiveness of an exhibition match. Lita hit the post after being set up by Doyle's outrageous scoop pass before Doyle, following up, crashed his shot against the bar. Nicky Shorey, Convey and Dave Kitson also wasted good chances as the crowd cheered and hollered and generally lapped it all up.

Ipswich, meanwhile, rarely threatened. Early in the second half Sam Parkin somehow headed over from three yards. Then, late on, Ibrahima Sonko brilliantly blocked Proudlock's goal-bound half-volley after Marcus Hahnemann had spilled a cross under pressure from Parkin. But that was largely it.

Certainly the Ipswich manager Joe Royle pulled no punches. "They were bigger, better, stronger and faster than us," he said. "I'm fuming, because my players haven't done what they were told. There's nothing wrong with three at the back, it's just our players didn't play it properly.

"Saying that, the result was conclusive we're still on the transitional phase - Reading have added two forwards to their squad from last year while we've lost six players. It's a perennial problem for clubs like us; our best talent is often cherry-picked by the Premiership.

Coppell, meanwhile, was effusive in his praise for Doyle, who has scored four goals in eight starts since joining from the League of Ireland side Cork City in the summer for £78,500. "He's come from nowhere, but he's keen to prove himself," said Coppell.

"We had him watched several times last year and liked what we saw. We thought he could do it in England, and so far he's proved to be a real handful."

"Ipswich like to play at a certain tempo, but our forwards disturbed that. Doyle chased their defenders down and his enthusiasm and energy are infectious."

As Doyle left the pitch, 20 minutes from time, the Reading supporters gave him a standing ovation before singing: "We are going up." There's a long way to go, of course, but on this evidence you would not put it past them.